• nifty@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The eradication of human sexuality from mass media culture is a clear sign of intense rot at the heart of our civilization

    In what way though? We see all kinds of sexual and suggestive displays everywhere in media because “sex sells”. I guess you and the people up voting you don’t use Instagram, which is essentially what Twitter is now trying to emulate via this rule change.

    How can such a fundamental element of thr human experience can be so conspicuously absent for almost all art and media.

    But it’s not? Every visual form of art has some kind of sexualized content. Go literally anywhere (online or off) and it’s there. The reason why the more overt and pornographic content is behind NSFW is because it’s titillating. Experiencing prolonged bouts of arousal is mentally exhausting and often leads to depression or worsens it, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10813043/#:~:text=Specifically%2C a higher and hyperstable,3%2C7%2C8].

    It’s why looking at porn all day is not mentally relaxing, necessarily. Some people also find overt sexual displays distracting as all they want to do is focus without being stimulated into another direction. That said, there are plenty of video games, movies, art forms, music experiences which explore human sexuality. They’re fun because it’s stimulation at a time when you’re in the frame of mind for it.

    I feel a lot of times when people talk about “something is like this” what they’re really saying “my experiences show that something is like this”, and that to me just indicates they need to broaden their experiences.

    We’re missing sex positivity in modern US society with respect to women’s reproductive rights and acceptance of different sexual orientations or gender identities. We’re not missing sex or sexualized content.

    • ACollectiveBean@lemmynsfw.com
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      7 months ago

      You are misunderstanding the meaning of the paper you linked; it is not referring to sexual arousal but rather the psychological state of hyperarousal aka the fight-or-flight response. These are two very different meanings of the term “arousal” and are not at all interchangable.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I am not misunderstanding it, heightened emotions = arousal, and sexual stimulation leads to heightened emotions